An artificial intelligence researcher left his job at the U.S. firm Anthropic this week with a cryptic warning about the state of the world, marking the latest resignation in a wave of departures over safety risks and ethical dilemmas.

In a letter posted on X, Mrinank Sharma wrote that he had achieved all he had hoped during his time at the AI safety company and was proud of his efforts, but was leaving over fears that the “world is in peril,” not just because of AI, but from a “whole series of interconnected crises,” ranging from bioterrorism to concerns over the industry’s “sycophancy.”

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He said he felt called to writing, to pursue a degree in poetry and to devote himself to “the practice of courageous speech.”

“Throughout my time here, I’ve repeatedly seen how hard it is to truly let our values govern our actions,” he continued.

Anthropic was founded in 2021 by a breakaway group of former OpenAI employees who pledged to design a more safety-centric approach to AI development than its competitors.

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Sharma led the company’s AI safeguards research team.

Anthropic has released reports outlining the safety of its own products, including Claude, its hybrid-reasoning large language model, and markets itself as a company committed to building reliable and understandable AI systems.

The company faced criticism last year after agreeing to pay US$1.5 billion to settle a class-action lawsuit from a group of authors who alleged the company used pirated versions of their work to train its AI models.

Sharma’s resignation comes the same week OpenAI researcher Zoë Hitzig announced her resignation in an essay in the New York Times, citing concerns about the company’s advertising strategy, including placing ads in ChatGPT.

“I once believed I could help the people building A.I. get ahead of the problems it would create. This week confirmed my slow realization that OpenAI seems to have stopped asking the questions I’d joined to help answer,” she wrote.

“People tell chatbots about their medical fears, their relationship problems, their beliefs about God and the afterlife. Advertising built on that archive creates a potential for manipulating users in ways we don’t have the tools to understand, let alone prevent.”

Anthropic and OpenAI recently became embroiled in a public spat after Anthropic released a Super Bowl advertisement criticizing OpenAI’s decision to run ads on ChatGPT.

In 2024, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said he was not a fan of using ads and would deploy them as a “last resort.”

Last week, he disputed the commercial’s claim that embedding ads was deceptive with a lengthy post criticizing Anthropic.

“I guess it’s on brand for Anthropic doublespeak to use a deceptive ad to critique theoretical deceptive ads that aren’t real, but a Super Bowl ad is not where I would expect it,” he wrote, adding that ads will continue to enable free access, which he said creates “agency.”

Employees at competing companies — Hitzig and Sharma — both expressed grave concern about the erosion of guiding principles established to preserve the integrity of AI and protect its users from manipulation.

Hitzig wrote that a potential “erosion of OpenAI’s own principles to maximise engagement” might already be happening at the firm.

Sharma said he was concerned about AI’s capacity to “distort humanity.”

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Venezuela’s acting president said Nicolás Maduro remains the country’s ‘legitimate’ leader, despite being held in the U.S. on charges of federal drug trafficking and narco-terrorism.

“I can tell you President Nicolás Maduro is the legitimate president,” Venezuela’s Delcy Rodriguez said in an NBC News interview.

Maduro pleaded not guilty to the charges in January.

With the comments, Rodriguez is continuing to make the case that last month’s U.S. operation to capture Maduro last was a violation of Venezuelan sovereignty even as the Trump administration says she’s cooperating with their effort to overhaul Venezuela’s vast oil industry.

U.S. forces whisked Maduro and his wife to New York to face drug conspiracy charges. Rodriguez in the interview said the Maduros are “innocent.”

Rodriguez met with Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Wednesday in Caracas.

Wright is expected to meet with government officials, oil executives and others during a three-day visit to the South American country.

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Wright’s visit comes as the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump continues to lift sanctions to allow foreign companies to operate in Venezuela and help rebuild the nation’s most important industry. It follows last month’s enactment of a Venezuelan law that opened the nation’s oil sector to private investment, reversing a tenet of the self-proclaimed socialist movement that has ruled the country for more than two decades.

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“I bring today a message from President Trump,” Wright told reporters as he stood next to Rodríguez with flags from both countries behind them.

“He is passionately committed to absolutely transforming the relationship between the United States and Venezuela, part of a broader agenda to make the Americas great again, to bring our countries closer together, to bring commerce, peace, prosperity, jobs, opportunity to the people of Venezuela.”

Rodríguez was sworn into her new role after the brazen Jan. 3 seizure of then-President Nicolás Maduro in a U.S. military attack in Caracas. She proposed the overhaul of the country’s energy law after Trump said his administration would take control of Venezuela’s oil exports and revitalize the ailing industry by luring foreign investment.

Rodríguez on Wednesday acknowledged that Venezuela’s relationship with the U.S. has had “highs and lows” but said both countries are now working on a mutually benefiting “energy agenda.”

“Let diplomatic dialogue … and energy dialogue be the appropriate and suitable channels for the U.S. and Venezuela to maturely determine how to move forward,” she said.

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Ukrainian skeleton athlete Vladyslav Heraskevych, a likely medal contender at the Winter Olympics, was barred from racing Thursday after refusing a last-minute plea from the International Olympic Committee to not use a helmet that honours more than 20 athletes and coaches killed in his country’s war with Russia.

The decision came roughly 45 minutes before the start of the competition and ended a three-day saga where Heraskevych knew he was risking being pulled from the Games by wearing the helmet, one that the IOC says breaks rules against making statements on the field of play.

The International Bobsled and Skeleton Federation said his decision to wear the helmet was “inconsistent with the Olympic Charter and Guidelines on Athlete Expression.”

He wore the helmet in training, but the IOC asked for him to wear a different helmet in races. It offered concessions, such as wearing a black armband or letting him display the helmet once he was off the ice.

“I believe, deeply, the IBSF and IOC understand that I’m not violating any rules,” Heraskevych said.

“Also, I would say (it’s) painful that it really looks like discrimination because many athletes already were expressing themselves. … They didn’t face the same things. So, suddenly, just the Ukrainian athlete in this Olympic Games will be disqualified for the helmet.”

IOC President Kirsty Coventry, who was slated to be in Cortina d’Ampezzo to see Alpine skiing, went to the sliding center instead to meet Heraskevych.

She was waiting at the top of the track when he arrived around 8:15 a.m., and they met privately. After about 10 minutes, Coventry was unable to change Heraskevych’s mind.

“We didn’t find common ground in this regard,” Heraskevych said.

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Tears rolled down Coventry’s face after the meeting. The Olympic champion swimmer made clear that she wanted a different outcome, and the IOC said the decision was made with regret.

“As you’ve all seen over the last few days, we’ve allowed for Vladyslav to use his helmet in training,” Coventry said.

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“No one, no one — especially me — is disagreeing with the messaging. The messaging is a powerful message. It’s a message of remembrance. It’s a message of memory and no one is disagreeing with that. The challenge that we are facing is that we wanted to ask or come up with a solution for just the field of play.”

Coventry and Heraskevych agreed that the helmet isn’t clearly visible during races anyway, given that sliders are zipping down the icy chute at around 120 kph (75 mph). That, the IOC hoped, was the window to a compromise. Heraskevych would not budge.

“Sadly, we’ve not been able to come to that solution,” Coventry said. “I really wanted to see him race today. It’s been an emotional morning.”

Heraskevych said he would appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, but the race went on without him. The first two runs were Thursday, the last two are Friday.

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Regardless of what CAS says, if anything, his chance to race in these Games is gone. The IOC is letting him keep his credential, meaning he can remain at the Olympics as an athlete — just not a competing one.

About a dozen Russian athletes are being allowed to compete at the Olympics as neutral individuals along with seven Belarusians. They are not allowed to compete under their national flag or anthem.

Heraskevych has spoken out several times about why he believes they shouldn’t be at the Olympics and said the IOC’s decision “plays along with Russian propaganda.”

The decision drew immediate condemnation from officials in Ukraine and some athletes.

“Sport shouldn’t mean amnesia, and the Olympic movement should help stop wars, not play into the hands of aggressors,” Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on social media.

“Unfortunately, the decision of the International Olympic Committee to disqualify Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych says otherwise.”

“Disqualified. I think that’s enough to understand what the modern IOC really is and how it disgraces the idea of the Olympic movement,” added Ukrainian skier Kateryna Kotsar on Instagram. “Vladyslav Heraskevych, for us and for the whole world, you’re a champion. Even without starting.”

The IOC had sided with Ukraine’s top slider before.

When he displayed a “No war in Ukraine” sign after his fourth and final run at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, the IOC said he was simply calling for peace and did not find him in violation of the Olympic charter.

This time, Heraskevych said he believes there are inconsistencies in how the IOC decides what statements are allowed.

Among those he cited: U.S. figure skater Maxim Naumov bringing a photo of his late parents — former pairs world champions Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, who were among the 67 people killed in a plane crash on Jan. 29, 2025 — to the kiss-and-cry area after his skate in Milan this week, and Israeli skeleton athlete Jared Firestone’s decision to appear at the opening ceremony wearing a kippah that bore the names of 11 Israeli athletes and coaches killed in the 1972 attack during the Munich Games.

“A competitor literally placed the memory of the dead on his head to honor them,” Heraskevych wrote on Instagram. “I frankly do not understand how these two cases are fundamentally different.”

Firestone said he admired Heraskevych. “I think he’s a man with strong values,” he said.

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In Milan, IOC spokesman Mark Adams said if athletes were allowed to display messaging without restrictions on the field of play “that would lead to a chaotic situation.”

“Sport without rules cannot function. … If we have no rules, we have no sport,” Adams said.

Heraskevych was fourth at the world championships last year and was among the fastest in training leading into the Olympic races. A medal was certainly within reach, but to Heraskevych, the helmet mattered more.

“The International Olympic Committee destroyed our dreams,” said Mykhailo Heraskevych, the slider’s coach and father. “It’s not fair.”